IPitch News Archive
The Enemy of My Customer is My Friend? mogeneration Hires a Hacker
By Rachel Youens on Sunday, November 29th, 2009
When you’re looking a CVs in the hiring process you generally throw out anyone with a criminal record or a shady online persona. But apparently what gets most CVs put directly in the bin brought one CV straight to the top at mogeneration as they have apparently hired the Australian hacker behind the Ikee worm to be an app developer. Ashley Towns created a worm to crack jailbroken iPhone security that installed a new Rick Astley background to infected users and opened the way for malware like the Duh worm that attempts to use a person’s iPhone as a botnet.
mogeneration is behind a number of successful apps including Lingopal and Xumii and serves clients like Perkler and News Digital Media. Although there doesn’t appear to be any official statement about the hiring on the Mogenereration site, the news actually came down through Ashley’s Twitter feed where he has apparently now removed the tweet on his protected account but one blogger caught a screen capture of the tweet.
Foursquare Checks in with Australia: How to Use Foursquare for Business
By Rachel Youens on Friday, November 27th, 2009
The link in the December 11th newsletter was incorrect, if you’re looking for the story on coworking…CLICK HERE
This week it was announced that social networking site Foursquare would open up to several Australian cities including Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. This competitive social networking site encourages people to explore their neighborhoods by giving points as people check in at restaurants, parks or bars and declaring “mayors” of certain locations and handing out badges for accomplishments such as staying out late on a work night.
Already many of Australia’s geek elite have jumped into the Foursquare game including Hive founders Ross Hill and Ned Dwyer, Adioso founder Tom Howard and Atlassian founder Mike Cannon Brookes. But beyond simple fun and games, there are ways for businesses to utilize this social network to gain new and loyal customers.
Loyalty programs are not a new idea, for years we’ve been getting our cards punched for everything from coffees to movie rentals, but now businesses are finding Foursquare as a new way for customers to prove their loyalty. It’s no longer, “show me your card” it’s “let me see how many times you’ve checked in.”
Read more
Trade One Aus for Another: Your Opportunity to Get to SXSW 2010
By Rachel Youens on Thursday, November 26th, 2009
You probably have a lot of misconceptions of what Texas is all about. You probably think bolo ties, cattle, ten gallon hats and President Bush, but I’m here to tell you that in the heart of Texas in the city of Austin is a burgeoning tech and entertainment scene and come March, it will be the place to be for any hip startup looking to brush shoulders with the best.
The 16 year old South by Southwest interactive festival, or SXSW as it is referred to, is a unique event because it brings together three festivals into a week-long span. The event starts with multimedia,gaming and interactive then goes to movies and then to music. So for a tech startup that deals with entertainment, such as mobile marketing, online video, music or fashion or social networking, it is triple threat to reach your customers on all sides. You can expect to meet and hear panels from experts at Threadless, Facebook, Etsy, Zappos, Mashable, Vimeo, Spotify, Twitter, Foursquare and more.
This year Melbourne-based startup (and recent Tech23 winner) QMcodes will be providing QR codes and mobile marketing for the annual event and is working The Victorian Government with support from Film Victoria and Austrade to organize a trade mission to Austin, Texas for SXSW.
A select few Victorian-based tech and digital media business’s will be offered the chance to attend and present at the Victorian Government 2010 Trade Mission to SXSW, approved attendees will be given a place in the Victorian Government trade show booth, Platinum attendance badges to attended all events across Film, Music and Interactive for the 9 days, a Victorian Government party to mingle with representatives from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Razorfish and similar companies, attendance on a panel on doing business between Australian and the USA, partial flights and accommodation will also be covered.
IPitch will be there documenting the activities and companies in the lead up to and during the mission. To be considered for the event you MUST be a registered Victorian business. To submit your company for consideration for trade mission, please send a 100 word pitch on your company and how SXSW would be useful for it, a link to your site and confirmation of your Victoria establishment to rachel@ipitch.com.au by December 20. The entries will be judged by QMcodes and fellow Melbourne startup and trade mission organizer Portable Content.
Pitchworthy News: KickStartMe, MEGA, TechNation, Digislide, University of Sydney
By Rachel Youens on Thursday, November 26th, 2009
• The NSW startup KickStartMe has changed its name to Public Support after conflicts with a similar business. The site allows users to create a project, ranging from getting a new EP out to raising funds for charity, and to have people donate and share in making that project come to fruition. The site is set for a late 2009, early 2010 launch.
• LoyaltyTech has created a platform for Jeanswest using Responsys, an email marketing and cross-channel campaign management solution. The solution was customised to add CRM functionality to support a new loyalty program integrated with point of sale and additional back-office reporting.
• It’s the end of an era with writer Kim Heras announcing the end of the Australian tech and entrepreneurial blog TechNation. Kim is leaving the blog in order to run the Australian wing of global tech site The Next Web.
• The University of Sydney’s Bachelor of Design Computing and Master of Interaction Design and Electronic Arts program is in the final days of its Dot to Dot graduate exhibit. Many of the projects come from the design computing department where students are using mobile technology to create devices ranging from bush fire warning systems to acceleration detection bike art to mood sensing cell phones. Friday is the last day of the exhibit, held at the campus Hearth + Tin Sheds gallery.
• Miniature projection technology company, Digislide has secured a $1.2 million Government grant to advance its opto-electronics and clean technology research and development. Digislide was awarded the funds under the South Australian Innovation and Investment Fund.
• MEGA Melbourne held the exhibition of its final projects Wednesday and MEGA Sydney will be showing off its end of term products Friday evening. The Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance is a several month program that walks attendees through the full concept, design, creation and marketing of a mobile product with the guidance and advice of industry leaders. The Sydney final exhibition is Friday from 2 to 5:30 at the Telstra Experience Centre, 4th floor at 400 George Street.
Pitchworthy News: Youkonnect , TeamStream, DDX, IPscape, Posse
By Rachel Youens on Monday, November 23rd, 2009
• Wotnews is debuting a new feature to the site called TeamStream aimed at companies where they can share news in a collaborative way. According to TeamStream’s website, which can be accessed via Wotnews,it allows better control and transparency for letting staff connect with relevant news, gives marketers better metrics and gives researchers a collaborative platform. Current Wotnews members are being given a free opportunity to try Team Stream
If you saw Wotnew’s other product, We are Hunted, at Tech23, you may be interested to know about the site’s spinoff Celebrity Hunted. Similar to the music platform, the celebrity version finds the most-searched celebs and connects to the top photos and news on them in the same clean fashion as it’s musical sibling.
• Speaking of Tech23 and We are Hunted, the winners have been announced for the Sydney tech and pitch competition and the music site is among those who took top honors. Other winners included QMcodes, DDX, Angusta, Posse, IPscape and Red Lizard Software.
• Australian conference networking tool site YouKonnect.com has launched with the first discussions already being posted on the site. The company Magnetized Markets is behing the networking site and also powers ifindconsultants.com and ifindsuppliers.com
Pitchworthy News: Objective, JMango, One Eye Deer
By Rachel Youens on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
• Australian company Objective released version 7.4 of its content, collaboration and management software to coincide with the launch of Windows 7. Objective 7.4 contains both enhancements to existing functionality, new functionality and platform upgrade support.
• TechNation blog creator Kim Heras announced this week that he has taken his own startup, One Eye Deer, out of beta and is making it open to the public with many of the changes and additions suggested by beta users. One Eye Deer is a community site for people to share their problem and use the web community to help solve it.
• The fact of the matter is, most of the world still thinks those little black and white boxes in the corner of billboards and adverts are tiny cross word puzzles. To speed up the adoption of QR codes, Melbourne-based startup JMango will begin working with QR code inventors Denso Wave to develop premium mobile reading technology.
Get the Weekly Wrap IPitch Newsletter
By Rachel Youens on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
What, you mean you don’t read our site every single day?! Okay, we won’t kid ourselves, even loyal fans may not come to IPitch every day but we still have new members, pitches, news and articles being added to the site every every day. If it’s too much for you to pay attention to tweets and too inconvenient to visit IPitch every day, we’re ready to deliver all the weekly highlights straight to your inbox. In the coming weeks we will be adding a signup for the Weekly Wrap to the IPitch site, but in the meantime, you can sign up for the newsletter in the form below, or preview last week’s. And to answer all the questions that always accompany newsletters:
•How often will I get it?
Well the answer is in the name…the Weekly Wrap comes once a week either on Wednesday or Thursday.
•Are you going to spam me?
We would rather die. We hate having our email boxes spammed as much as you and we will respect your inbox.
•What is in the newsletter?
A selection of the new members that joined, the pitches companies are releasing, headlines of all the news and articles from the week, links to any video you might have missed, list of upcoming events around Australia.
Congratulations, We’ve Made You All Gold Class IPitch Members! Oh Wait..Oops, Never Mind: What We Can Learn From Virgin Blue’s Social Media Disaster
By Rachel Youens on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Sitting in the Virgin lounge is one of the few times I’ve felt that old-school 1950-60s glamour of flying. Relaxing pre-flight with a glass of champagne, snacking on brie, reading a London paper as jets glide in and out of the airstrip behind the giant glass windows of the Sydney airport. Despite my busy travel schedule I’ve racked up nowhere near enough points on the discount VirginBlue to get anywhere near any precious metal status so you can imagine my shock on Friday to find I had been upgraded to gold status.
Me and thousands of other VirginBlue passengers, apparently, as the gold status upgrade email was mistakenly sent to all of Virgin’s rewards members and not just those eligible for gold status. In fact, I think if you had listened really closely on Saturday you may have heard both the collective exclamations and then curses echoing across Australia.
Almost immediately, Twitter lit up with angry Virgin customers who ranged from shoulder shrugging disappointed to lawsuit-wielding mad. Thus far, Virgin has only responded saying there was a processing error and that there’s nothing they can do. But is there a way that Virgin could have taken a social media disaster and turned it into whopping success? Think about it, if their customers had already had their hopes sunk so low, it would taken very little to pull them out of the dumps, plus all the online conversation happening would save them thousands compared to them launching their own campaign.
Social media disasters will happen, things will go wrong, but when mean tweets are hitting your company like daggers it doesn’t mean you should close up shop. Here are some cheap ways to cope with the damage and spin it in a positive light without having to hire an expert PR firm:
• Be transparent about the mistake.
As of Sunday evening, the only explanation Virgin had offered was “Friday the 13th” strikes. In other words, they may have just as well blamed the error on computer trolls or newsletter elves. Even the largest company will, at times, make mistakes and people understand this so when an error is made, fess up and give an honest explanation as quickly as possible. This turns your screw up into an opportunity to demonstrate your transparency and honesty to you customers and will, in the long run and if not made into a habit, build loyalty rather than harming it.
Latest Group Of COMET Winners Include SaaS and Electronics Startups
By Rachel Youens on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
This week AusIndustry announced the next round of 14 businesses who would be receiving funding in the Commercialising Emerging Technologies grant program. Past winners have included TradeSlot and Parts All Over. Businesses who are chosen receive 70,400 to help them gain a foothold in the market. The latest winners include:
•Just One Place - This recent Tech23 Innovation Island presenter has developed supply-chain management software for the consumer goods industry. The web-based product can work with financial software to help streamline every part of the manufacturing and design process.
•Medinexus - Taking advantage of the vast opportunities provided by putting medical records online, Medinexus provides a secure way for healthcare providers to message and collaborate. Right now the service is targeted at radiology clinics and hospitals, helping to cut down on the amount of X-ray film used in the medical process.
•Billsuite Holdings - Claiming to offer a seamless end-to-end broker service, Billsuite telcom bills and then recommends the best plans and providers for a customer based on their specific usage patterns
Pitchworthy News: ANZA Tech, Melbourne Op Shop Tours, Global Entrepreneurship Week, Room Monster
By Rachel Youens on Monday, November 16th, 2009
• Student Entrepreneurs/Agents of Change winners Melbourne Op Shop Tours may be in need of a name change when they expand into London in three weeks. Run by three University of Melbourne students, Op Shop Tours organizers a tour of local vintage and secondhand stores employing public transportation and offering expert styling advice.
• Lots of Australian startups are popping up that allow people to make a bit of extra cash off their empty space, first Space Out allowed people to offer their spare space for storage and now Room Monster is helping Aussies rent out spare rooms. The service is currently operating in NSW, ACT and Western Australia and has just launched with its first listings.
• Earlier this year ANZA brought of group of startups, including Tradeslot and MyOwnPad, to Silicon Valley as part of its Gateway to the US program helping Aussie startups refine their pitches for an American audience of investors and media. Now ANZA is considering opening a new gateway into the Chinese market. The program would give 5 Aussie startups aid in navigating Chinese business, law and customs and offer introductions to contacts in the local markets.
• Global Entrepreneurship Week has kicked off in Sydney headed up by Matt Jones, the organizer of the Sydney chapter of entrepreneurial meetup The Hive. This local celebration of the global event will feature a number of the local tech entrepreneurial leaders offering special events such as a Dragon’s Den style pitch fest and a specially themed BarCamp. You can find more on the week’s activities here.
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